It was evening and the orient sun
Into his bed was moving on;
The air was cool, a gentle breeze
Came whispering through the waving trees;
The feathered songsters of the west
Were seeking for their place of rest;
The lowing herds, their music stills,
And sink to rest upon the hills.
The sun was sinking in the west,
A golden shield upon his breast,
A sudden impulse seized my soul;
The impulse got beyond control.
And in my frenzy off I hied
To climb the rugged mountain side
To gaze upon receding day,
And watch the golden sunbeams play
In vivid streaks across the sky
To paint the clouds that floated by.
And, oh, I thought those clouds were blessed,
They moved so sweetly from the west;
In colors gorgeous and grand
As ever left a painter's hand.
The yellow tinge, the golden hue,
The scarlet red, the lovely blue;
The silvery gray, the white, the black;
No colors did the picture lack.
But all in beauty gathered there,
Suspended in the evening air,
And while those clouds in beauty float,
Like fabled fairy's pleasure boat,
I gazed upon the western skies
Bespangled with unnumbered dyes,
In admiration and surprise
I turned to view the eastern skies.
The grand mountain's lofty height
Reflected still the beams of light;
Down at his feet, in sombre mood,
The Titans of the forest stood;
While up above the timber lines
His sunlit brow in beauty shines;
That brow that stood serene, sublime,
Despite the spoiling hand of time —
A monarch, by ages undefiled —
Ere man had trod the western wild.
But while I gazed the light had fled,
And sombre hues had crowned his head.
I stood in silent thought profound,
Till twilight let her curtains down.
And in the eastern sky afar
She pinned them with a shining star.
Then all was silent, hushed and still,
And darkness shrouded plain and hill;
And night her sable mantle hurled
In peace around a sleeping world.